The High Road: The Jacobite Era [25-1: added list of regiments to first post]

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The High Road: The Jacobite Era [25-1: added list of regiments to first post]

N.B.: We are still looking for some more contributors. If you can either skin or script, I'd be happy to hear from you via PM

The year is 1688 - The English Protestant government, completely through with King James II, have asked the Stadtholder of the Netherlands, William III of Orange, who is Married to Anne - the daughter of James II, to overthrow his father-in-law and establish a proper Protestant dynasty. William lands with his Dutch army on the shores of England in November of the year and marches on London. James sees no other option but to flee and escapes to France.

The protestants rejoice! After years of Stuart rule, a fitting King now sits upon the Thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland. However, not all are content with William and Anne's rule. The Catholics of Scotland and Ireland, paying high taxes to fund an unnecessary war in France, waged by an illegitimate Dutch King and his wife, are disgruntled and demand the return of the rightful heir to the throne. In early 1689, Scottish clans and Irish Catholics, loyal to the expelled King James enter open resistance against the Williamite government: the start of nearly 60 years of continuous struggle, decided in 1746 during the last pitched battle on the British Isles. Tensions are high in the Highlands of Scotland - rival clans seize the opportunities to extend their influence and increase their wealth. Political ambitions raise high - but who to support, the Stuarts, or the Government?

This mod will focus on Scotland and the north of Ireland and England, and aims to involve numerous historical events, historically accurate regiments and commanders, as well as a proper representation of clan warfare. Starting in 1688 and ending in 1746, the mod aims to have a large-scale map, so as to properly represent the difficulties in traversing the sparsely populated highlands. turns per year will be 6, so as to represent the alliances that were made and broken within short periods of these tumultuous times. After this mod has been completed, two more campaigns (one focussing on Ireland and one on all three kingdoms) will be considered!

The mod will feature 20 factions, of which 17 Scottish factions. Historically, the Irish jacobites managed to hold out in the Ireland until 1691 and are therefore included. The clans have been picked in order to best represent the clans that joined in the risings, although many other smaller clans, were also involved.
Below you can find a list of the factions with their corresponding colour and the numbers of their starting regions, as well as a list of (approximately) historical regions, which you can find in the maps below the text. The idea is that there will be many permanent stone forts (with a village strat and battle map model) in order to represent the smaller settlements, and many castles since the regions were mostly governed from there.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Faction Symbols

Faction Descriptions

Clan MacLeod

Clan Murray

The Scots Government

Clan Campbell

Map_Regions:

Region Table

Campaign map:

Campaign Maps

With awesome smoothened coasts by Dannyxx30 and many thanks to Alleycat for his generous contribution in the form of the textures for the heather moors (all the purple, of which there is a lot!). Please note that the map is not final. It needs tweaking and polishing, this is just to show progress!!

Ayrshire

Kirkudbrightshire

Knoydart, Skye and Lochalsh

Strathnavern

We have screenshots of the units! Please bear in mind that these are a work in progress and skins and/or reskins are needed for some of them. The government units are mostly done, except for the highland units.

Finally, this mod will aim at representing history as well as can be achieved. Below you may find some of the most important events (with associated in-game effects) that will be considered, as well as the recruitment system and core scripting. Please note that we have decided to abandon the idea of having two camps ''jacobites and government''. These will still be there, but the clans they are composed of will vary each rising, as is historically correct.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

scripting and recruitment system

I: POLITICS

i: all scottish factions have the same religion
ii: the Scottish Government will function the same as the papal states
ii(a): crusades (plantation/disciplinary action) will be targeted primarily against excommunicated
factions and the Irish.
ii(b): this requires renaming of ''pope'' into Lord Chancellor for Scotland and ''cardinal'' into Lord of Parliament, in addition to other renamings related.
iii: The Baron's Alliance (Stuarts) will spawn at the start of the game. After (any) initial defeat, they will ask the player occasionally to recapture a settlement for them
iii(a): Capturing a settlement fires a script with a yes/no option. clicking yes will excommunicate the faction, and give it a stack of jacobite troops. clicking no will give a stack of government troops.
iii(b): Upon receiving the initial settlement, the stuarts will gain 3 full stacks of jacobite units.
iv: there will be two principal mission sources: 1. the government, 2. the local council.
iv(a): government missions will give the player 2-3 excellent units FOR THE DURATION OF THE MISSION. They will be destroyed when the goal is achieved or the mission time runs out via the kill script.
iv(b): council missions will give medium sums of money.
v: there will be two campaigns (long = jacobite, short = government), each with objectives that force a player to the jacobite or government cause. to be determined later.

i: heraldry will be portrayed through hereditary traits. (e.g. clan murray faction leader will always be styled ''Duke of Atholl'' and the heir ''Marquiss of Tullibardine")
ii: England and the Scottish government will be able to merge (Kalmar script). If this is an issue due to the government being the pope, the English will be able to convert to the scottish religion at some point.

turn events

April 16, 1689: Viscount Dundee raises his standard
 Stuarts spawn in Dundee (very little troops). Turn after, full stack of stuarts appears.
 All jacobite clans are now at war with governmental factions, except Cameron.
 all governmental clans become allies
 all jacobite clans become allies, except Cameron.

August 13, 1689: Marshall Schomberg lands in Ireland and captures Carrickfergus
 Large stack of English soldiers including Schomberg spawns in County Antrim and besieges Carrickfergus Castle

August 17, 1691: William demands an oath of allegiance from all the highland clans
 players gets a choice: sign oath, become neutral and pay England 200 pounds per turn for 10 turns or deny oath and have a medium stack of English troops spawn near your capital

May 1, 1707: Acts of Union
 Lowland Scotland /England will get a number of conditions to fulfill, after which it gets the choice to form a union with England / Lowland Scotland

September 6, 1715: the Earl of Mar raises the standard of James III at Braemar
 a full stack of stuarts spawns south of Huntly Castle
 stuarts receive Inverness, Perth and Dundee (October 1715)
 the turn after (to avoid war due to capture of Inverness etc), all the jacobite clans become at war with all governmental clans, all jacobites ally, all governmental forces ally.

April 13, 1719: Spanish troops land on the Isle of Lewis and near Eilean Donan in order to support jacobite highland clans.
 Clan Macleod and Clan Donald both receive 3 units of Spanish Musketeers in their capital, as well as 1 light piece of artillery each.
 A medium stack of Stuarts spawns near Eilean Donan, comprised of Highlanders and Spanish troops, including Rob Roy McGregor.

August 19, 1745: Prince Charles lands in Scotland and meets with the clans at Glenfinnan (near fort William).
 a full stack of Stuarts spawns near Fort William, including 4 units of the Irish Brigade, as well as MacDonald and Cameron clansmen.
 all jacobite clans ally, except for clan Gordon. All government clans ally, this time including clan Gordon. All opposing clans are at war.

Music Preview

With special thanks to the performers, Jed Mugford, Mikk Skinner, Kate McCullough and Mike Gardiner for their generous permission.

2D art

And to top it off, two signatures for both the jacobite and the governmental cause for you to use.

Re: The High Road: The Jacobite Era

Re: The High Road: The Jacobite Era

Bonnie Prince Charlie's goal was not just the Scottish throne. He was more interested in gaining the English one. The Jacobite army got as far south as Derby and could well have gone on to London. I think that it would therefore be better to include all of England which would provide for this historical objective and allow England to be properly represented. Essentially the war was a civil one between Catholics and Protestants from both sides of the border.

Re: The High Road: The Jacobite Era

Thank you all for the comments, they are much appreciated. Finding a team is well under way: I found two eager mappers and a 2D artist (a personal friend of mine) who will do some of the artwork alongside myself. The page itself will also receive a minor update with some better looking headers in the next few days, now that it's actually coming off the ground.

Bonnie Prince Charlie's goal was not just the Scottish throne. He was more interested in gaining the English one. The Jacobite army got as far south as Derby and could well have gone on to London. I think that it would therefore be better to include all of England which would provide for this historical objective and allow England to be properly represented. Essentially the war was a civil one between Catholics and Protestants from both sides of the border.

I am aware of that and I am still considering that. However, I'd really like to focus on clan feuds and how they used the Jacobite cause to serve their own ends - after all, they didn't care as much for catholicism as they did for power and land (albeit some historians do claim otherwise). I think for now I'll focus on this, as to not set my goals too high for I have much to learn still (as you certainly know!). I will however make sure that those events are included in the events and I will also include several units of the Manchester Regiment in the Jacobite armies in Scotland once they should be historically present, just like the spanish and Irish! If all this works out, I'll make sure to include a second campaign with less focus on Scotland and more on the general picture! This is by the way also why I chose this name for the mod: it's obviously a quote (for those who didn't know maybe less obviously) from the song ''Loch Lomond" but The High Road also for me refers to Scotland, since it is the northernmost part of Britain! I found it fitting

edit: I personally don't think the Jacobites would have managed to capture London though - troops from Flanders were already being send back and most of the Jacobites wanted to go home. The majority of supporters of Prince Charlie actually advised him to stay in Scotland so that he could regroup and consolidate! After the capture of Carlisle, many troops deserted already and while retreating to Scotland, Carlisle was already taken again quickly.

edit II: Some signature banners can be found at the bottom of the first post now, so if you like the mod and you wish to support it, by all means use one! There is one for the Government and one for the Jacobites!

Re: The High Road: The Jacobite Era

Two WIP-maps are now included in the spoiler regarding ''maps''! They are nowhere near completion, but coming along smoothly and we figured it would be good to show you all the size of the map we're working on!

Re: The High Road: The Jacobite Era

Sounds like a cool mod, let me know if you need a hand with 2d art and basic text editing, not sure what kind of experience you have or need, I've only modded things for myself so far (splitting factions in Third Age, editing textures, making new units using existing models, changing names etc.). I'm particularly interested in the Camerons and Gordons as I have ancestors from those clans.

Re: The High Road: The Jacobite Era

Glad to hear it! We'll be doing our best. 2D work and the first models are on the way, albeit a little slow due to personal circumstances (exam week et all). Stay tuned! If you feel like helping out in any way I'd be glad to hear it, too.

Re: The High Road: The Jacobite Era

That map looks huge.... Although maybe its just because of the lack of hills and trees at the moment, but it looks like a number of turns navigating before your gonna reach the next settlement.

Anyway, one idea I always wished a mod would introduce (since I never had the time to do myself) is to focus more of AOR units, rather than developing large rosters for each faction. This way is not only more realistic of how armies are gathered, and look, but is also a lot less time consuming for the poor modders in charge of making all those lovely units.

Imagine... 5 units per faction, but almost each region has its own unique AOR unit available with it, which could be recruited through the use of a new "regional recruits" building branch... This means as your faction expands and conquers new territories, its armies become more diverse and interesting, better representing all the other clans you have subdued, and who now fight for you. I think this idea would work perfectly in the mod, as you don't want to play as one clan, conquer another clans land, and then find yourself recruiting your own clans units from the other clans settlements.

Re: The High Road: The Jacobite Era

Hello Horsa, thanks for the feedback!

The map in fact is huge. I wanted it to be huge to represent the desolate highlands and the difficulty in traversing them. There will be PSF's all over the map later, which will as such gain much more importance since those will now also become bases to strike from (free upkeep in PSFs!). In addition, the intention is that some areas will be closed off for certain units. For examples, whilst clansmen can run into the mountains, cannons and horses will not be able to cross rough and steep terrain. (it makes no sense for a cannon to be dragged up a 40% hillside...)

Then to the units: In the original post I stated:

there will only be minimal factional units in order to represent the various clans from various regions in Scotland. clan Campbell, the Lowlands, England and Ireland will have more sophisticated unit rosters than the clans. Also, heavy artillery and line infantry can only be recruited in cities

By that I meant the exact thing that you just suggested. There will be a lot of regional units mainly. It would make no sense at all to have heavy english troops being recruited on the isle of lewis for example. The only thing I'm still doubtful about is the way these units should look. Those from the Isles and northern highlands will likely have less fancy clothing than from clan Campbell for example, but the problem is that there were no ''clan'' tartans but rather regional tartans. I'll have a look into that, I ll likely make a combination on each unit of the regional tartan and the clan tartan - historically they would wear all kinds of tartan things on top of each other anyway.

Also, mercenaries will ofcourse consist of clansmen from clans that I did not include (so although clan Grant won't be there, you could have a few in your army by having mercenaries). Near the west coast, I intend also to have some spanish and irish mercenaries every so many turns, just to show french and spanish support in a larger manner.

Hope all that made sense - if you have any more ideas or concerns, do share them with me!

Also, the unit symbols are being made at the moment, and I'll be writing faction descriptions for those, so stay tuned for that

edit: if you speak some decent German and you like the AOR units, give Infracta's mod ''Dreissig Jahre Krieg'' a go. It's good fun and I hope they ll share some of their knowledge with me later on so I can implement some ideas.
edit II: what I'm actually thinking of is just clansmen, musketeers and bagpipers for each clan, and then just regional units....for the english I also want to make grenadiers solemnly recruitable in Newcastle, since it makes no sense churning out tons of elite units from inverness for example